Holy crap! I slept through my alarm and missed my thousandth post!
Er … Welcome to my 1,002nd. post.
It's samphire season. Yay!
Meet samphire.That's marsh samphire, not rock samphire, which is unrelated and tastes like turpentine and should never really be eaten unless the only other choice is KFC.
Marsh samphire (salicornia) is - and I use this term advisedly - fucking awesome!
It is a plant of the tidal mudflats, which means we get a LOT of it around Norfolk's coasts.
Collecting it is messy, though, so I tend to collect mine from David the fishmonger, which means I don't need to wear big, thigh-length rubber wading boots.
Unless I really want to … er.
Marsh samphire is in season from June through to early September, but after that it gets a little cranky, so now is the ideal time to eat it.
Only ever buy fresh and local samphire; the imported stuff has come a long way wrapped in plastic and squashed in boxes and will be as tired, stale, sweaty and unpleasant as you would be after the same journey.
It is wonderful raw in salads, but if you do with it what I do with it then your taste buds will love you for ever.
So … marsh samphire …
What do we do with it?
Well first up, we put it in a colander and give it a good wash under the cold tap, making sure to get rid of all those little bits of cack and seaweed and sand and whatever else the tide has festooned it with.Then just snip off any roots and it's ready for the steamer.
To accompany it, I'll just be baking some salmon very simply, hence the Le Creuset.
You'll need a nice organic onion.Slice it up and mind your fingers.
Next up: assemble this lot in a rough stack:- A lovely wild salmon steak;
- Your sliced onion;
- Some parsley and thyme from the plants on the windowcill;
- A couple of decent knobs of unsalted organic Irish butter;
- The juice of a whole lemon (organic - natch), squeezed over the top.
Simple.
Pre-heat your oven to Gas mark 6 or whatever the equivalent is for electric, parcel up your salmon then pop it in there and check it after fifteen minutes or so. This one took eighteen minutes to achieve perfection.
In the meantime, crank up your steamer for the samphire.This wants six minutes. No more; no less.
This is what it should look like plated up.The samphire is at its best swimming in butter and lemon.
If you think asparagus or artichokes have an affinity with butter, then samphire is a million times better. It is what butter was made for, believe me.
Just grab a forkful, dripping with butter, lemon and fishy juices and pop it in your mouth.If that isn't one of the most fantastic things you have ever tasted, then you don't deserve tastebuds.
Really … samphire fucking rules!
Buy it.
Eat it.
Enjoy!
27 comments:
Looks good.......
It IS good.
Looks delicious, sugar! I'll have to check into samphire. We tend to serve salmon on a bed of baby spinach leaves. xoxxo
Congratulations on 1,002 posts! ;~D
salicornia
Savannah: Good link! Glad it's available over there, too. You'll have to try it; it's SO much nicer than baby spinach. Honest!
xoxox
Yum.
Yes Please.
Problem......
Where am I going to get my hands on unsalted organic Irish butter?
Please send me an unsalted organic Irish cow and I'll make my own.
Yep, we convicts are resourceful.
Try the supermarket, Kate.
They sell lots of different organic butters over here. Do you have Sainsbury's or Tesco down there?
I didn't know you entered supermarkets Dive I thought you had the idea they were the shops of the devil, I'm sure I recall a post? ;)
Even less did I know you count your posts! I've often wondered how or why people do this. No matter: congrats on a 1,000!
This salmon looks really scrummy. I cook my salmon in exactly the same way; in foil parcel, usually with lemon, herbs, garlic and a small knob of butter. Sometimes a drizzle of white wine over. Might do this week's with spinach, which I need.
Supermarkets over here pretty much sell fat laden crap in assorted packaging.
Anything organic is highly overpriced and not always organic.
Fruit and vegies are a suspect lot unless you get them from a proper green grocer.
And meat, well I cooked bacon (not the really good jamie oliver sort, the crappy got it from the shops sort) and then i got this fecking flu.
And yes I know you can't get swine flu from pork products but I have a really politically incorrect theory about just who is behind the swine flu epidemic.
Hands up which religion doesn't eat bacon?
End rant.
And please remember that I am under the influence of some pretty nasty flu drugs.
:)
lol Katie that's a novel thought, hadn't even occurred to me. I do wish you well for the good riddance of the flu. Poor you.
Lynn: I pop to the evil Sainsbury's empire about once a month to stock up on things like toilet paper and detergent. Most of my food comes from the London and Norwich markets and delis or my local farm shop.
Sainsbury's do, however, have a good range of organic stuff, including Irish butter, though I would never buy meat or fish or anything purportedly fresh or local from them.
I left out the white wine and garlic and the more pungent herbs from this recipe because the samphire rewards simplicity. Its flavour is quite wonderful.
I only counted my posts by coincidence a couple of months back and noticed I was almost at the thousand.
Then I … er … forgot to check again until I'd missed it.
Hey ho.
Kate: The Jews? The Buddhists?
Hee hee. You know I jest. But you also know anti-Islamic comments aren't exactly welcome here, so I'll put that one down to the drugs.
As Lynn says: get well soon.
I didn't say Islamic Dive.
And no I didn't know you were pro Islamic - I've been away.
However I wasn't actually referring to god/krisha/allah based religion. The exploration and tolerance of all forms of god bothering is something I am currently investigating. Leaning more towards Buddhism and Hinduism.
I was referring to the whole Animal Farm Orwellian concept. (I just reread it about a month ago) The pigs refused to be bacon.
I believe all isms, communism, capitalism, marxism, feminism, are all a form of religion. Started by a handful, propaganda'd up and followed by many.
Buddhism is my religion of choice at the moment.
I tried jewishism but I like bacon too much and I am too selfish to give it up.
Regarding supermarkets, we have Woolworths (crap crap and shite) and Coles. These corporate bullies pretty much rule the market not to mention the fuel prices over here. We have a few independants that the corporate giants do their best to shut down.
No Tesco's or Sainsbury. Not even an American Piggly Wiggly.
I'd rather talk about samphire.
Oh, and tell your supermarkets to shape up!
Your salmon dish looks delish! I've never heard of samphire until now. I'd like to try it some day.
It is yummy, Ms.M.
You should ask your fishmonger to get some in for you.
Wow, let's hear it for local vegetables I've never heard of. (Any food with "marsh" in the name has to be interesting.) Sounds very yummy. Sounds like something I'd have to travel to eat.
We get Kerrygold butter at Trader Joe's, but I forget if it's organic or, um, inorganic.
(And at our local food-snob supermarket, we probably get even more butter options. I love the place, especially for its properly-manned butcher counter, but haven't browsed the butter lately.)
Hi, Sarah!
Savannah found a link to the Epicurious site (in her comments above) which gives info on samphire (also called glasswort, apparently).
They say it is widely available all the way up the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the US, so you should have no problem finding it as you live so close to the Ocean.
Browsing the butter sounds fun.
I never even heard of samphire before. You learn something new every day. Bless the internet.
It certainly has its uses, Vanda.
That looks really good, and I'd never heard of samphire before, either. Must try the salmon recipe, tho.
I'll pop into my local fish monger to try out the word samphire on them to see if it means anything at all. When I'm asking for it, may I quote you on how good it tastes? The challenge following finding it will be to get the man across the table from me to eat it, too. I may be eating samphire solo. Hmmm. just rereading your description of its affinity for mudflats. We don't have a lot of them around here. Worth a try, tho.
This looks delicious. I have to find me some samphire. I have found the Irish butter but it is not as good as the Irish butter in Ireland. I grew up exploring the salt marshes. I caught salamanders and blue crabs. I got stuck in the mud many times, but don't remember seeing anything like the samphire. I shall have to investigate.
Hi, Cynthia.
The salmon recipe I kept really basic. I normally add garlic and white wine and sometimes cream to salmon but the samphire is best with as few and as simple flavours as possible.
Lupine Lady: You must have loads of it around the other parts of the New England coastline as it is very much like Norfolk. It looks a little weird but once you've tasted it you'll know just why I love it so much.
Neetzy: like Guinness, Irish butter is much better in Ireland. Hee hee. Stuck in the mud hunting weird things. That so reminds me of my childhood.
I passed this recipe on to my next door neighbor, who was grilling salmon today and she made it on the grill! It was delicious and I am not much of a salmon fan.
Funnily enough, I managed to get to the end of this one Dive, even though it had raw fish in it. Samphire sounds delicious, especially steamed with Irish butter and lemon. When I visit you in Norwich in June sometime, you will have to fetch some for me (there's no way I could visit that fishmonger friend of yours by myself!)
This dish look quite tempting. Salmon is one of my favorites. I am not familiar with samphire but Im sure I would like it. I always grill-smoke my salmon using applewood, and I make a serving sauce using good soy sauce, dijon mustard, light brown sugar, and rice wine vinegar. Luckily we are able to buy good Irish butter at a good market and there is nothing like it. Nice post Dive. I really enjoyed this one.
This looks great. I'm not sure I can buy samphire in Ohio—you've given it adjectives, but compare it to something else to give me a better idea of its flavor.
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